2023-12-16
Readings
Crow problem solving under neuroimaging: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42203-8
A documentary from actor David Harewood who earlier in his life experienced psychosis:
A possible exception to one of the genetic rules in biology in terms of gene expression: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-central-dogma-biology-bioengineers.amp
Researchers associated with SETI are attempting conversation with whales https://www.space.com/seti-whale-conversation-extraterrestrial-communication
Related is the CETI project, attempting to do the same with ML techniques: https://hakaimagazine.com/features/are-we-on-the-verge-of-chatting-with-whales/
A better understanding (maybe) of black holes undergoing mergers: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6404/ad1531
Possible broad cognitive benefits to bilingualism: https://phys.org/news/2023-11-bilingual-brain-irrelevant.html
Human biphasic sleep in history:
Interesting to see Anna Cramling talk strategy in Chess with Magnus Carlsen while playing; I don’t play the game but I appreciate the intellectualism:
Thoughts
There are times when in arguments we might argue a point that to someone else is really meaningful but to us it’s “despite that, if real”. This means that we both think it’s wrong and that it’s either irrelevant to how things should be decided or that it’s not important enough to sway us. It’s possible in many domains, but one simple example would be if a claim keeps coming up that someone is part of a religious group different than they seem to be - the claimed one being “less good”. “Secret Muslim” sometimes comes up in the US, sometimes “secret atheist”. It’s annoying to waste too much energy on something that’s in this category for us (I mildly prefer atheists in office but generally am ok with people of most other beliefs if they don’t seem too fanatical about it), but even there I like to mention that I see the argument being made (usually by someone for whom this decides the issue) as both wrong and unconvincing, in the sense of both honesty and to prepare in case by some weird chance they’re right.
I came across an interesting poll on Twitter (which I just peek at every few weeks or so) asking if Satanism should be recognised as a religion and covered by the First Amendment; in my view, this isn’t a yes-no question because it sits on a bad premise in recent First Amendment parsing that needs to be torn down. The proper way to treat the religious parts of 1A doesn’t involve recognising religions at all or offering them protection based on recognition. It involves ignoring them unless it’s clear that laws are being written with a purpose of stomping on religion. No accommodation is appropriate, and with that understood the question in the poll goes away.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Ukraine hitting hurdles with Hungary blocking European military aid and political dysfunction in the US blocking American aid. There has been little motion on the ground
Israel’s raid of Gaza continues as part of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict as international support for Bibi and Israel’s operations continue to diminish
The deep space probe Voyager 1 is sending bad data back to Terra, for unknown reasons. It’s unclear if it can be recovered
Venezuela’s possible invasion of Guyana had a “peace” meeting where both sides agreed to avoid use of force or provocative actions, which probably means little so long as Venezuela intends to invade to distract from its domestic political woes
Guatemala’s current government continues to try to find ways to prevent a peaceful transfer of power to its president-elect, in what’s beginning to look like a coup
Sudan’s messy war between its two possible illegitimate governments may be paused as the generals from both parts of its military agree to meet
Egypt held presidential elections, the results of which are likely to be announced in 2 days
Polls
A Gallup poll reports that more Americans are optimistic that the Social Security system will provide full promised benefits when they retire ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/546890/americans-upbeat-future-social-security-benefits.aspx ) ; in my case, I expect this to be the case and I find concerns on the solvency of the system to be overblown. The option of using the general tax burden to hold up the system if needed seems both fine to me and workable. There have been proposals to reform it based on a concern that the numbers won’t work out, but I don’t see the need given that our government could both pull funds from anything dedicated or put funds into anything as needed in the future
A Pew Poll suggests that Trump Supporters are far less likely to want viable compromise on political issues than other political ideologies; I suspect (the poll is limited to Republicans, I believe) there has been a growth of populist parts of the Left that have a similarly combative no-compromise set of views on things, and that populism is a problem whether left or right: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/12/14/in-gop-contest-trump-supporters-stand-out-for-dislike-of-compromise/
Policy Focus
The University of Wisconsin is facing pressure from local Republican lawmakers on reducing DEI staffing in order to get continued funding; while my politics are not right-leaning, I appreciate the efforts of these lawmakers. Title IX and DEI positions are numerous, wasteful, and often end up being an in for activists that effectively reduce diversity of views on campus, pushing progressive positions and penalising other views (right or left). In the longer-term I think it makes sense to revise Title IX to dramatically reduce its scope or to repeal it, but in the shorter term removing all DEI staff/programs and trimming Title IX compliance officers is a good step because these have empowered far-left politics at the expense (monetary and expressiveness) of everyone else.
Reviewlets
Iron Sky (film) - This was a ridiculous and shameless scifi B-movie that I really enjoyed (just came back across it). There’s a lot of fun in films that know they’re bad and don’t care
New York Presbyterian Allen Hospital - I had surgery there on Monday; the only real complaint I have is that this place is up on a hill without assistance for people approaching by foot, but the staff is great (and talkative), the waiting rooms have a great view, everything’s cozy, and they provide a surprise gift bag for people getting some surgeries. Some of the tablets were a bit flaky for check-in as well, but tech problems are everywhere in modern life. If I ever need surgery again on a non-urgent basis, this’d be a great place for it
Amusements
Open Dorrr; Many years ago, there was a series called the Angry Video Game Nerd, done by a Finnish guy named Jaakko; he ran into some trouble with Youtube policies (that was never fully explained) and his account got taken down (and reposted by others), and a knock-off series run by someone else took the name for other purposes. Recently I came across one of the old videos:
Deep thinking about some contradictions in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:
Fun story from Werner Herzog on languages:
How to prep and do some cool dance moves:
Valve asks users of its SteamDeck portable gaming machine to not deliberately inhale fumes from the device: https://www.ign.com/articles/valve-steam-deck-owners-inhaling-exhaust-fumes
Recent Music
This had rather more style than substance, but a Youtube take on Kpop/Metal fusion is fun:
Swamps of Sadness - Neverending Story OST - Dramatic, beautiful, and sad, this is from the scene in the movie where the horse Artax succombs to depression and lets itself drown in a swamp. This was probably one of the most despair-inducing scene I can remember from movies when I was a kid; left a mark
Oh No - Gogol Bordello - Hearing him sing and remembering his singing has a weird difference; his voice is not consistently toned but the backing instruments lead us to read notes into the flat-spoken parts. Good song too, but this is consistent across most of his pieces